Comment by eigenvector
10 years ago
My favourite example of this is the Economist news magazine. The Economist reports on a much larger range of country and topics than the typical magazine or newspaper. Many of its readers like it for that exact reason: it gives them information on stories they won't normally find in their local or national news sources and they want to be informed about, say, hydroelectric developments in the Congo.
The problem is that writing about 25 different countries in a single issue doesn't mean they actually have experts on most of those places or people on the ground to do original reporting. Often, it devolves into British or American writers regurgitating inaccurate information from the Internet. But if it's the only thing you read about, say, forest exports from Myanmar, you have no reason to question it.
The easiest way to see this is to be a non-US/UK/EU person and read an article in the Economist about your own country. Then you realize that all the other articles are just as simplistic and uninformed.
My experience is the opposite. And I'm definitely not blind to the Gell-Mann Amnesia, I notice it on Wikipedia all the time.
I've noticed that in The Economist the articles about my field of technology, work, and my small home country, have been accurate to the point that I suspect they have had experts in the field involved in creating them. That gives me confidence in the articles about issues I'm not intimately familiar with.
That is why The Economist is one of the few news sources I read after cutting out following daily news completely. As a result I'm much better informed about the facts and issues than I was when reading huge amounts of daily news. It boils down to a difference between consuming mostly noise and consuming mostly signal.
Interesting. My own area of knowledge is renewable energy, a topic which appears with moderate frequency in TE. I would say 8/10 articles are merely repackaging reports published by major global consultancies like McKinsey, Navigant, etc. that I had seen two or three months earlier through my employer (a large multinational energy company). I would not say the information is not correct, but it hardly insightful and often presents an incomplete picture which looks at the industry primarily from the perspective of financiers.
Well that's why it's not called The Technologist I guess :) It's hard to expect non-specialist publication to write anything non-trite to an expert in the field, but just not botching up the basic facts is often refreshing.
Repackaging reports and press releases (without attribution!) is major problem in news everywhere.
perhaps not insightful to you, someone with knowledge of the area. but how about others? how about me? where should I gain my insights into all of the various industries that I don't have direct knowledge of today?
I'd like to echo this sentiment. In fact, this is the exact reason that I happily pay for The Economist. Even when reporting on topics with which I'm quite familiar, The Economist nails it in terms of accuracy.
For instance, recently there was a writeup on quantum computing in which they made a somewhat hyperbolic claim regarding D-Wave. This gave me pause; however, the point was clarified in subsequent paragraphs, thus restoring my confidence in their analysis.
Much like the parent poster, I too have dropped many of my daily news sources, but not The Economist. I've yet to find a publication which matches it in terms of coverage and accuracy--not to mention their exceptionally high-quality audio recordings of each edition (perfect for commuting!).
yes and no.
Ive noticed the economist has a habit of playing policy games.
In that case they publish nonsense to further certain policy aims.
But often its well researched unbiased material.
not that easy to tell the difference.
but infinately better than the junk put out by the likes of the bbc fox cnn times etc.
Totally agreed.
But the nice thing about the newspaper (The Economist refers to itself as a newspaper, not a magazine) is that they provide pure opinion journalism and as a reader you know exactly where they are coming from.
While I agree a lot with the publication (for example: they argued to liberalize drugs, or advocated gay marriage literally decades before it was chic). I encounter my share of (what I lovingly refer to as) full-of-shit opinions, with which I wholeheartedly disagree.
Overall, though, it's one of the last remaining publications, on which I put a certain amount of trust because they usually know what they're writing about and even on the subjects on which I (partially vehemently) disagree it's always an interesting read.
Because they argue their position intelligently and competently. It won't make me a believer, but it's useful and interesting to get the counterpoint from a reputable and trustworthy publication and sometimes get your dogmas slightly shaken in the process.
3 replies →
I thought we liked BBC?
Reading the above quote from Micheal Chrichton, I immediately thought about The Economist and how they are usually well informed. I remember a short article on some legal case in rap music. I used to be very into rap, and while I didn't learn a lot from the article it did confirm that the writers take it very seriously whatever topic they are reporting on.
I stopped reading TE because I was put off by their too steadfast belief in monetarism as the be it end all. To their credit, they are pretty upfront about that though.
Actually, the Economist has about 400 reporters for a 50 page weekly magazine, about 8 per page, so they do have enough people to include experts for all those fields.
The times I read an Economist article about my country or my line of work the coverage was actually very good, but your milage may vary.
I am from a non-US, non-EU, non-UK country and the Economist coverage about my country isn't perfect but it's pretty decent.
Non-UK after non-EU already? the brexit hasn't happened yet :)
To be fair, I live in the such a country. Only, in my case, it is Norway, so it is kind of different altogether.
Very true, but TE is usually way less wrong than the alternatives. The journalists there at least seem to know how to use Wikipedia. I mean, what am I supposed to read instead?
The Economist also has a fairly evident political agenda.
I don't follow it that closely, but aren't they also pretty up-front about their own bias?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_editorial_stance
Indeed, and that is why I very rarely read it - for me, it would be too echo-chambery. I read the NYT quite deliberately and every day, enumerate why Krugman and Blow are wrong about whatever they are pontificating about...
Has The Economist shifted? I started reading it in about 2000, and at the time I really liked it because it seemed so intelligent and neutral. It seemed like such a pleasure to read something that went deep into interesting topics without an obvious axe to grind.
In the past ten years it seems to have drifted gradually leftward. Sometimes I can't reconsile The Economist of 2000 with the one of 2016. Did The Economist move gradually to the left or did I move to the right?
I think you've moved to the right, or this is another case of "reality having a leftwing bias". Or perhaps issues not reducing clearly to left/right.
The Economist were always Mill/Smith liberals, in favour of free trade, light but effective regulation, against the War on Drugs, pro-migration etc. They have a strong tendency to recommend economic liberalism regardless of what the problem is. These days the "right" have moved to "illiberal" positions - restricting free trade and migration. That may be what you're seeing.
If $xyz seems neutral to you, then it might mean you are politically and tonally aligned with $xyz ?
They have shifted over the past years, from small-business, fair/relatively-free market stance towards elitism/globalism.
My subscription is up in January, and -for the first time in 25 years- will NOT be renewed.
Left? The Economist has a blatant liberal slant.
4 replies →
...compared to those outlets where is not that evident ?
Because I cannot think of any publication that I would call completely impartial (it also would make for pretty dry reading).
The Economist is not perfect but is the best news source I know, by far.